First of all let me introduce myself. My name is Matt, and I am a gaming veteran of 23 years. I mainly play GW games (EPIC, Blood Bowl and Necromunda) plus I love board games.

I have an old copy of Warhammer Quest but, to my shame, I have never played it. Last year, I saw the release of Silver Tower and got really excited ... until I discovered that there was no hero advancement as such. I love Necromunda; I love the way your models take on their own unique personality after just a few games.

Shadows over Hammerhal has just been released and, on the Games Workshop site, they state that it has 'hero advancement' however, I have struggled to find information about how detailed the advancement system is and that has stalled my purchase.

I wondered if anyone here could tell me about the hero advancement system.

- Is it as good as the original Warhammer Quest?
- Is there a limit of how advanced your character can get?
- can weapons be changed, new skills and equipment be bought?
- Will this advancement system breathe life into a piece of plastic being pushed through a dungeon?

The more detailed the better.

If the advancement systems seems good enough I might go 'all out' and buy both games plus the character cards. I don't own a single Age of Sigmar model - the models look ace - and I have been told that the Silver Tower's game play is great.

I don't know if you bought these games yet (I have), but I heartily recommend that you find the original either way. It's fantastic out of the box, and the Roleplay Book adds all of the progression ideas you like.

I'm aware that shrinkwrapped mini-expansions for the old game have ridiculous prices like $750 for Catacombs of Terror, but I've also seen "mostly complete" versions of the base game for a little over $100. The necessities are the Roleplay Book and the Adventure Book. I think pretty much anything else can be replaced by modern figures and printouts. If you like the game, the individual character packs cost the same as they did back when I collected them years ago.